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Apple Archive

Apple Reports Bizarre First Quarter Results

Apple reported its quarterly results, and thanks to the iPhone 4S and the iPad, Apple is putting out bizarre figures - 37 million iPhones, 15.5 million iPads. "The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter." Is this the end of Android's dominance, or just a single uberquarter due to the new iPhone?

Apple’s Education Event: On the Road to Vendor Lock-in

Apple's education event just ended, and just as Ars Technica said, Apple announced better support for textbooks, as well as a textbook authoring tool. The textbook authoring tool is heavily inspired by Keynote and Pages, and hence, I already know it's going to be top-notch and very pleasant to use. In addition, the company also repositioned iTunes U as a Blackboard competitor. As great as all these new tools are, several large red flags went up in my mind: I remember what it was like being the only student who didn't use Windows. Update: "Any e-textbook author that wants access to the iPad-toting masses must make his or her work an exclusive to iBooks 2."

Whited00r Brings iOS5 Features to Older Devices

Custom ROMs on mobile devices have been a staple-mate of the mobile industry since the Windows Mobile PocketPC CE Phone Edition Whatever days. Android took over here, with a lively custom ROM scene, allowing you to tailor your device to your own needs - including updates to operating system versions your device maker of carrier doesn't allow. Custom iOS ROMs, on the other hand, are pretty damn rare, so it's interesting to see a custom iOS ROM that brings several iOS 5 features to devices that can't actually run iOS 5. Welcome to Whited00r.

Apple To Announce Tools, Platform for Textbook Publishing

"Apple is slated to announce the fruits of its labor on improving the use of technology in education at its special media event on Thursday, January 19. While speculation has so far centered on digital textbooks, sources close to the matter have confirmed to Ars that Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books - the 'GarageBand for e-books', so to speak - and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users." While the textbook industry needs some massive disruption, am I the only one who thinks a solution over which Apple has total editorial control and which is limited entirely to Apple PCs and iOS devices is a really stupid idea? That's like going from Scylla to Charybdis.

Apple To Usher in High DPI Era?

Apple makes the best consumer laptops. For me, there's absolutely no denying that this is the case. Apple has had this lead over the competition since the iBook G3 Dual USB 12.1" and 14", and has never lost it. Right now, the rumour mill is abuzz about Apple supposedly prepping to launch a MacBook Pro with a retina display - 2880x1800.

Apple Made a Deal with the Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll)

Just when I thought the company I once admired greatly couldn't sink any lower. "Over the last two years, Apple has been engaged in vicious legal battles over smartphone patents, many of which are aimed at squelching (or squeezing money out of) manufacturers of devices running Android. And now, for some reason, it has given valuable patents to a patent troll - which is using them to sue many of the top technology companies in the world."

Apple Loses iPad Trademark Case in China

"Apple could face disruption to its iPad sales in China after a court rejected its claim to own the iPad trademark in the country and a rival sought to halt sales of the tablet device in two Chinese cities. The developments are the latest in a long-running dispute between Apple and Proview Technology (Shenzhen), a struggling Taiwanese-owned company that registered trademarks for the name IPAD in many countries long before Apple conceived its smash hit tablet computer." Apple is clearly copying from this innovative Chinese company. If Apple fanatics are actually consistent (*), they would condemn Apple for this clear case of theft.

Gassee: Thank God Apple Didn’t Buy Be

It's no secret OSNews has a bit of a thing for the BeOS. I can only speak for myself, obviously, but relatively speaking, BeOS was the best operating system ever made. The man who started all this was Jean-Louis Gassee, former executive at Apple, who founded Be, Inc. in 1991. In the second half of the '90s, Apple was looking for a replacement for its heavily outdated Mac OS, after several failed attempts at developing its own - it came down to Steve Jobs NeXT, or BeOS. Be didn't make it, and Gassee is happier for it.

Managing Macs In The Mac OS X Lion Era

User interest and bring-your-own-tech policies are pushing Macs beyond their traditional business niches. InfoWorld's Ryan Faas provides a Mac management guide to help you extend your existing support strategies to Mac workstations, providing tips, techniques, and a list of 22 essential Mac tools for embracing Macs as they become more prevalent in your business environment. 'Macs can no longer be managed independent of other processes and infrastructure. They must be integrated with your existing directory service. They require an efficient, scalable deployment model that hooks into asset management. They require secure, auditable patch management and a device and user management solution that secures each Mac's core OS components and apps.'

Apple’s Lossless ALAC Open Sourced

Apple has open sourced ALAC. "The Apple Lossless Audio Codec is an audio codec developed by Apple and supported on iPhone, iPad, most iPods, Mac and iTunes. ALAC is a data compression method which reduces the size of audio files with no loss of information. A decoded ALAC stream is bit-for-bit identical to the original uncompressed audio file. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec project contains the sources for the ALAC encoder and decoder. Also included is an example command line utility, called alacconvert, to read and write audio data to/from Core Audio Format and WAVE files. A description of a 'magic cookie' for use with files based on the ISO base media file format (e.g. MP4 and M4A) is included as well. The Apple Lossless Audio Codec sources are available under the Apache license."

Apple Television with iOS, Siri, FaceTime?

Appleinsider writes: "An anticipated Apple high-definition television set, complete with iOS features including Siri voice commands, FaceTime video chat and access to the App Store, would be a strong product in a massive $100 billion market, according to a new analysis." Last year I explained my vision of a smart TV too (read the comment), and my ideas were pretty much the same thing AppleInsider discusses about today. Back then I was almost laughed at by most OSNews residents for these ideas. I have the feeling that the people who then found my ideas ridiculous, they'll now find a possible Apple smart TV "natural" and "revolutionary".

Jobs: “I’m Going to Destroy Android”

So, how serious is the legal battle between Apple and the various Android phone makers, really? Surely, it's just logical business sense that's behind it, right? Calculated, well-planned precision strikes designed to hurt Android where simply making better, more innovative products isn't enough? Well, no, not really. We already knew Steve Jobs took this personal - now we know just how personal.

Steve Jobs Dies Age 56

On its website, Apple has just confirmed that its co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, has passed away at age 56. After bringing the company back from the brink of bankruptcy and turning it into one of the world's most succesful technology companies, Jobs lost the battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple Unveils iPhone 4S

I'm down with the flu at the moment, so I wasn't really looking forward to doing a detailed write-up of all the awesome stuff Apple was going to show off today. So, Tim Cook, thanks for talking about nothing for almost two hours straight. The only mildly interesting thing is a slightly specbumped iPhone 4, dubbed the iPhone 4S, which has a faster processor and graphics chip, better camera, and a few other improvements here and there to bring it in line with Android phones launched earlier this year. Sadly, Apple insists on the teeny tiny 3.5" screen, which is too small even for my girly fingers (I'm not kidding, I have to buy gloves in women's clothing stores). For the rest, it was a long rundown of iOS5 features we already knew, and improvements to voice recognition - which is something WP7, Android, and every other self-respecting mobile operating system does already anyway. They do claim it will sport a more natural feel to it, but only time will tell how well it'll work outside of pre-recorded and widely tested on-stage demos.

SF Police Launch Probe into iPhone Search

A new chapter in the lost iPhone 5 prototype saga. Sergio Calderon, the man who claimed he was intimidated into allowing police officers to search his house (and, as it turns out, these people were Apple employees who didn't identify themselves as such), is talking to an attorney about this case. In addition, the SFPD has launched an investigation into the case to find out if somebody crossed any legal bounds. Update: More details here.

Apple Employees May Have Falsely Represented Police Officers

So, I kind of mocked this story yesterday, but today an interesting twist has emerged which puts the story in an entirely different light. This week, CNet reported a story about how Apple is working with the San Francisco Police Department to retrieve a lost iPhone 5 prototype. The police and Apple apparently traced the phone to someone's house, and showed up on his doorstep, threatening him and his family. The only problem - the SFPD has no record of any house search or of the case in general - raising the question whether Apple employees falsely impersonated the SFPD, which happens to be a serious crime in California. Update: While I was busy sleeping, the story changed a little bit, but it's still far too shady. After conferring with Apple, the SFPD now states four police officers were involved, and that only the two Apple employees entered Calderon's house. However, Calderon had no idea these two were private non-police people, since he claims they did not identify themselves as Apple employees. Had he known, he would not have let them search his house. So, update or no, Apple employees still impersonated police officers, and issued threats to intimidate Calderon into letting them search his house - without a warrant. I don't understand how people can just accept this sort of behaviour. Don't you have rights in the US? Update II: Perfect summary.